410THE AMERICAN GOLFER

BY OUR BRITISH CORRESPONDENT ONDON August 12, 1916

ONE OF THE MOST interesting pic- is Jack "in his habit as he lived," and tures at the summer exhibition of the it is Jack just as he was in perhaps Royal Academy, which, as everyone the last fully happy hours that he had in the United States may not know, when, on his brief period of leave a is the historic and chief picture show few weeks before he was killed, he of the year so far as Great Britain is played his last games at Hoylakes. It concerned, is a portrait of the late is a fine picture both as a work of art Captain John Graham, which is hung and as a piece of character painting; in the middle of one of the walls in it is really Jack. His fine simplicity, Gallery V and is numbered 509. his happy gentleness, rest upon his Golfers in hundreds have been to see features. Modesty and sympathy as it, because it is a fine picture of a they made his greatness are there. golfer, the first of a famous player Those who say that we all loved Jack, that has ever been given a place in the as indeed we did, realize the truth of Royal Academy, and because it repre- the remark when they look upon the sents one of the great sacrifices of features as they are shown on this this game for the cause that we have canvas at Burlington House. I be- at heart, a player who was deeply lieve the picture has been specially loved by the whole community and of painted to be hung in the clubhouse whom everyone who knew him had of the Royal Liverpool Club at something good to say, and no one Hoylake. To these notes I attach a the least that was ever bad or unkind. small photograph of it that has been In every respect this portrait of "The kindly supplied to me by the relatives late Captain John Graham, jun., of the great player whose loss we Liverpool Scottish," is excellent, but mourn, but in whose life and death though the artist, Mr. Robert E. Mor- the old game has a special glory for rison of Liverpool, indicates the sol- itself. No two golfers have ever lived dier and the sacrifice in the title, who were so much the favourites of which is enough, and as it was right the people as Fred Tait and Jack and necessary he should do, he gives Graham, and it is a sad but splendid dear old Jack to us not in his kilts coincidence that they both gave their and with a sword in hand, but as we lives fighting for their country. knew him best and admired him, as a golfer on the links. Here he is in HAVE I mentioned to you before his old grey jacket with his driver that Lord Kitchener, the tragedy of above his shoulder as at the finish of whose death appalled the world, was his swing. As we would put it, this something of a golfer? It is a fact 412THE AMERICAN GOLFER that was not generally known except when they had no feminine ties to dis- to the intimates of the dead Field- tract them, and one who was accus- Marshal, and is one of those inter- tomed to get his own way and con- esting personal sidelights on the life quer and that with few hindrances, of this man of great achievement and being worried and baffled by this some mystery that one is entitled to queer old game of ours. Yet so it

"The late CAPTAIN JOHN GRAHAM, JR., Liverpool-Scottish." A fine portrait of the famous British player, killed in the war, which is exhibited at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, London, this summer. mention now. It is curious to think was. There were few things in life of this strange cold silent man, of the that ever got the better of Kitchener, most tremendous determination, a but this was one of them. He fought "woman-hater" as he was popularly with it very hard, he gave to it severe supposed to be and certainly one who effort and concentration, but though believed that men did their best work he remained a player and one whom 414THE AMERICAN GOLFER

the game fascinated considerably at did Sayers remark that Lord Kitch- times, he made precious little progress ener give indication in his very first with it. Yet he held some honours in round of "interesting possibilities in connection with it, being for one thing the long game." Two or three days an Honorary Member of the Royal St. later he was declaring that his long George's Golf Club at Sandwich, a game was by far the best, and after- distinction awarded to only three wards he said that "at the third at- other persons and those of much re- tempt over a private course" he aston- nown, another one being Lord Cur- ished me by his steadiness and zon, late Viceroy of India. I believe straightness in driving. He played he made his first real beginning at the some excellent shots with a Dread- game in Egypt about a dozen years nought driver. In the short game I ago, but did not get very far on that had only once to tell him how to occasion. People who used to go stand. There was never any occa- there at that time and went out for a sion to direct him a second time. Hav- little golf on the course at Cairo and ing got a style so naturally for the were appealed to by the caddies to short game I confidently expect he become their employers for the day, will improve. He has every appear- used to be told very often "Me plenty ance of thoroughly enjoying the fine caddie boy, sah! Me caddie for game." These were guarded and sub- Lord Kitchener!" As often as not tle compliments indeed! So on he this was, of course, a lie, but it showed went, and we hear of him one day quite clearly that Kitchener had spending the whole of an afternoon on knocked a ball about some time or the private course at Archerfield, other. He really made up his mind practising driving and having three that he could not remain in such a balls out with him which he drove complete state of golfing ignorance continually from the same place. He about six years ago when he was stay- was very persevering, as it seemed, ing one summer season at North Ber- and as one would expect of him. But, wick. He engaged George Sayers as as we know, great Kitchener had his tutor, this George having taught other things to do than play golf, and various kings and princes how to those other things he did magnifi- shape their stances and how best to cently. make the backward and all other swings. Although Sayers was very THE FOLLOWING comments in an tactful he soon came to the conclusion important London journal upon the that there were no championships in success of very young players in store for his distinguished patron, America, and the moral to be drawn and he became occupied in the diffi- therefrom, may be read with interest cult task of choosing the right words by golfers in the United States: in which to describe his progress. He ". . . .A difference in temperament may declared semi-officially that in the have something to do with it, and I am cer- tain that the more thorough and methodical matter of style in approaching and way in which the very young players in putting, "one might think that Lord that country are trained and train them- Kitchener had been playing for some selves has much more. The young players, time." For careful statement that directly they find they have any aptitude was surely at least a thought or two for the game at all, take it far more seri- ously and thoroughly than do those in our better than par. Then most admirably own country, who are so very haphazard, 416 THE AMERICAN GOLFER as it were, and they are encouraged much ambition also—a man who has been more by the junior championships, school- qualifying for second and third "flights," boy championships, and so forth. The as they call them, striving continu- Americans may be wrong in encouraging ally to get into the first. It also con- such enthusiasm and extreme thoroughness stitutes a very broad system of handicap- in boys in the mere matter of games, and ping which has much to recommend it. In they may be mistaking the function of these tournaments a few of the best ama- games. One says this in deference to the teurs of the country continually appear, new views which have been developed in and thus they come to be regarded as only this country since the beginning of the war second in interest to the championships and at a period when it is being fiercely themselves; the players go from one to contended that nobody should do anything another, and a general interest is given to at all that, in one way or another, does not American amateur golf which makes it assist our prospects in the war, and that completely overshadow the professional never should anybody do anything that is thing, and brings on the young players at not very serious and associated with some a very rapid rate. great and deserving work. We are now We, obsessed as we say, with war, reflect quite obsessed with the war, and it is not that we do not want that sort of thing; only inevitable but right that we should be; that it is time wasted that ought to be given but at the same time it should be con- to something perhaps unpleasant and pro- sidered that our judgment upon such mat- vocative of mental depression. It may be ters is not now impartial and well balanced. so, but I think we shall look differently The Americans will say that this great upon things after the war, and certainly I thoroughness and methodical persistency by believe that the American system is better their young in the matter of games assists than ours—the one that was—of monthly the formation of a fine character and a medal competitions and hardly anything general disposition towards thoroughness, else in the public way except professional and that it is reflected in all the more seri- exhibition matches. I have always said that ous undertakings of these young people's the American system from every point of lives. They will say that if the boys play view is infinitely better than our own, and very thoroughly they will work very if we are to make a good thing of our golf thoroughly; that the proof of the pudding after the war, as I believe we shall, we is in the eating; and that every one of these cannot do better than adopt it. What is golf prodigies makes good in the business more, I am confident that it will be, and, world; and they may ask what has any on the other hand, that if it is not we must other country to teach the citizens of the resign ourselves to taking a place quite in United States in the matter of business. the rear of the Americans in the matter of We are rather up against it, as we might quality at golf. We have been far too say, when the matter is put in this way. much disposed in the past to turn up our Another factor in the development of the noses, as it were, at American systems, and young American player is the tournament to believe that nothing could be so good as system they have in America. There they our own. That is wrong. I like con- pay less attention to trumpetry monthly servatism in golf, as in most other sports, medal competitions than we do, but all but there has been much that was stupid through the season they have first class in the conduct of the game on this side, tournaments here, there, and everywhere, in and it will be changed in the new time that which there are qualification rounds by is coming." stroke play for whomsoever cares to enter, with match-play tournaments to follow, THERE WAS a professional tourna- and these are made specially interesting by the fact that most of the players who enter ment recently on the very popular originally qualify for some sort of match course of the North Shore Golf Club play afterwards, the first sixteen in the list at Blackpool on the Lancashire coast, having the chief tournament to themselves, where golf is doing quite as well as the second sixteen another one, the third ever it did in its history and in some sixteen another, and so on. This en- courages players of all kinds to enter cases far better. The people in those these competitions and encourages their busy manufacturing parts are work- 418THE AMERICAN GOLFER ing very hard in these war days, and never had such amazingly dull sum- they find it pays them in every sense mer weather as this before. How- to play hard whenever they get the ever, the result is that never before chance. On one occasion I mention, in July and August have our golf was brought over as a courses, inland and seaside, been so special attraction, and he was joined marvellously good. They are as green by three other professionals, these as in April, the turf is in the most being T. G. Renouf, A. Simpson and splendid state of springiness, and the J. G. Stuart, the local man. In the putting greens are gloriously fine. morning Vardon made the best round, The soldiers, who play extensively, are doing 71, while Stuart was 72. The getting the benefit of them, and if champion played fine golf all through, they are half as good after the war and gave one more demonstration of we shall have something to show our the fact that his form has lost nothing foreign visitors that will surprise of its brilliancy. In the afternoon a them. Anyone who imagines that four-ball match was played, Vardon during this terrible period in our his- and Simpson being opposed to Renouf tory our golf courses are going to ruin and Stuart, the former pair winning is just about as far from the truth as by a hole. They did the first nine it is possible to be. holes in 34 as against their opponents' I WOULD LIKE to say that the news 36, and were two up at the turn, but of Chick Evans's success in the U. S. the match was square at the four- National Open Championship at teenth, and there was a hard fight for Minikahda was cabled over here at it on the last few holes, three of them once and gave more satisfaction to being halved and then Vardon getting British golfers than anything else that a 4 to the others' 6 on the last hole. has happened in the game since the The winners' best ball score was 68 war began. Chick has a very large and that of the losers 69. The balls body of friends in this country, and used were put up for auction at the they like him immensely, but they had close of play, and were sold for the begun to think that his failure in equivalent of about fifty dollars, this championships of all kinds, except money and what was obtained from those which belong specially to the admission charges being given to the Chicago district and the French ama- local war funds. teur, was getting too much on his nerves, as considering his bad luck he THE WEATHER during the past few might well be excused for its doing, weeks has been very extraordinary in and that he never would win now. this country, and, if there had been His success at last is all the more no war, there would have been much pleasing to everyone, and we look for- grumbling but less perhaps from ward to him adding many more to golfers than from any other part of this victory now that he has begun, the community. There has been and nothing would please us more practically no sun and much rain, and than to see him doing well in our own many people will have it, in spite of championship as soon as the war is the denials of the meterologists, that over. it is the result of all the gun-shooting at the front. The coincidence is cer- has gone into the tainly rather convincing, as we have Army. He has joined the Royal Fly- 420THE AMERICAN GOLFER

ing Corps, and at the present time is Light Infantry, who was killed in stationed at Farnborough in the south action at the outset of the offensive. of . He has the good wishes There are two or three players of the of golfing people everywhere, and it name of Boyd who are well known in may fairly be said that he is the best first class golf. The gallant officer British golfer in the army. Vardon, who has now fallen was thirty-six Taylor, Braid and Herd, it may be re- years of age and was a member of the marked again, are above the military Royal and Ancient, Prestwick and age limit, and Ray has been medically Troon clubs, and he played many rejected. , the French times in the amateur championship. player, has been in the French army In 1905 he was beaten in the fourth for a long time now, and he is the round at Prestwick by the Hon. only ex-Open Champion in the fight- Osmund Scott, who subsequently ing ranks, while George Duncan is the reached the final, and two years later only British player of full champion- he again reached the fourth round ship rank, though not yet champion, when the event was played at St.. who is there also. It may not be gen- Andrews. He was beaten in the first erally appreciated how hard the war round at Hoylake in 1906 and in the has hit such a man as Duncan. He second in 1911 by L. O. Munn, the was the one player outside the ranks Irish player. He won the South of of the who has been Ireland championship at Lahinch in expected to win the championship 1912 after being led nearly all the way year after year, and has been capable by his opponent in the final. Captain of winning it. To have two oppor- Boyd was a fine driver. Another good tunities of doing so taken out of his golfer who has given his life for his career when at his very best is very country was Lieut. R. Sutcliffe of the bad luck. West Yorkshire Regiment. He was well known on Yorkshire golf courses, IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that the and in 1907 he was runner-up for the ranks of the golfers suffer enormously Yorkshire championship. He had in the great offensive of the Allies also competed in the amateur cham- that is now taking place on the west- pionship. There are many other ern front, and from which we hope losses, but the list is too sad to com- for so much. One puts it in that way ment upon. I would only just add since practically every officer and a that Lieut. P. Neill Fraser, who was large proportion of the men of the killed on the first day of the offensive, new army that is now doing such was a brother of that splendid inter- glorious work are more or less of national lady golfer, Miss Neill golfers. One of the first players of Fraser, who died of fever out in some celebrity whose name appeared Serbia in the early days of the war in the casualty lists was Captain when acting as a nurse out there. George V. M. Boyd of the Highland HENRY LEACH.